How A Bougie IV Clinic Actually Cured My ‘Man Cold’

This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

***

Nothing felt amiss, but the more I spoke, the more I sounded like I might take a few detours on the drive home for animal specimens to examine at a later date. No offense to RFK Jr., of course. The scratching got heavier, my voice weaker, the pitch uneven. Not worrying too much about it, I flossed and brushed, washed my face, applied lotion, and went to bed. I was unbothered, moisturized, happy, in my lane, focused, flourishing. 

Then the morning came, and it became obvious that the rasp was the beginning of something more than a spot-on celebrity impersonation. Worse still, it was the deadliest of illnesses, the dreaded man cold, a condition for which there is no cure except for death. Or at least there was no cure save death until now. 

After depositing the one non-driving child at school, I went through my contacts and sent a text to the owner of a local IV clinic, one of those trendy places offering NAD+, hangover cures, and super mega doses of vitamin C. I asked about the vitamin C option, the “Not Today Sickness,” and received a reply that it was the clinic’s most popular offering. She asked what time I wanted to come in, booked it, and sent me the barrage of consent forms that lawyers have deemed necessary for our continuing survival. 

I was skeptical, but not so skeptical as to fail to give it a try. Some weeks can be lost to illness. This was not such a week. I needed to get back on my feet. As a friend told me bluntly, “they work,” my expectations rose, even as the owner had told me she wasn’t sure it would help with my voice. 

To say this place is bougie is to undersell it. There are roughly 25 of these wellness centers in my area — a region of about 650,000 — and at none of them does one merely lie on a table and take one’s drip. No, one reclines into a plush massage chair while the phlebotomist/host/attendant brings water and the optional eye massagers. (Naturally, I said yes.) Then one settles in for the better part of an hour as the fortified solution drips slowly into the bloodstream.

Once the bag finished emptying itself into me, shortly after I finished my second pass through the full-body massage, the phlebotomist/host/attendant removed the needle and told me to go whenever I felt ready. Not being bothered by needles, I was ready then, for I had found a vitamin and nutrient-dense smoothie just a half mile away during the final few minutes of my therapy. 

To say this smoothie was the most disgusting concoction I have ever ingested would be a stretch, but to say it was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever forced myself to finish solely because I’d paid for it would be accurate. If one were to try to make a smoothie as bland and chalky as this one was, one would be hard-pressed to do worse. To make a smoothie that contains maple syrup, banana, peanut butter, coconut milk, and cocoa taste bad is almost impressive. It is a feat to take inputs so sweet and reduce them into something resembling the daily rations offered to the inhabitants of a sci-fi dystopia where everyone engages in absolute hedonism … until they are killed and turned into smoothies. 

The IV, on the other hand, was vigilantly coursing through my veins. My voice remained a mess. I was still sick, but my energy was returning. Though not yet wholly unbothered, I was much less bothered than I had been that morning. As I’m a little bougie myself, wearing eye massagers while receiving new age care was very much in my lane. I’d slept and showered, so I was also rested and moisturized. I still wasn’t flourishing, though. 

But when I awoke the next morning? I was starting to feel it. My voice was returning. My white blood cells, freshly fed and on the march, were making tremendous headway. I was on my way back, baby. 

After one more sleep, the cold was almost an afterthought. There was still some coughing, but the productive kind, my body expelling the excess phlegm that had accumulated during the battle. I was prepared for my day, ready to take the youngest to school and to plan for the evening’s work.

The treatment was cheap, though it certainly seemed expensive. But such places do not accept insurance. As such, the costs are transparent. Nonetheless, when one is accustomed to paying an exorbitant amount every month in exchange for doc visits that cost “only” $35, dropping a few hundred seems excessive. Trust me, though, it’s never just $35. Wellness clinics for humans are more akin to veterinarians’ offices than those of general practitioners. We’re simply more expensive to maintain than Fido, particularly given that Fido objects to extras like massage chairs. 

The friend who told me the treatments work later shared that he gets one monthly, and it has greatly improved his overall wellness. I most certainly will follow his lead here and make receiving a bag of enhanced saline part of my routine. Maybe it’s mental. Maybe it’s medical. Maybe it’s both. Whatever the case, when it comes to reviving yourself when you’re in tough — but not dire — straits, the secret to your recovery is in the bag, though I’d include the eye massagers just to be safe. Without them, you’d not only look ridiculous, but your return to flourishing might even be delayed.

***

Rich Cromwell is a writer living in Northwest Arkansas. He produces the Cookin’ Up a Story podcast. Follow him on X @rcromwell4.